


Fantasy Genre

by HyperRiceSputnik



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Gen, M/M, me: casually disregards canon with every word i type, this is completely self indulgent please let me have this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-17 09:59:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5864851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperRiceSputnik/pseuds/HyperRiceSputnik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the terrible harry potter au nobody asked for</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. romantic walks in hogwarts halls, ft. potter needs to stop

"He's not really good at this, is he?" Hide lightly nudges his shoulder as they continue walking down the halls. Kaneki sighs and urges him to keep going, not wanting to be caught by anyone and get into trouble any time soon. The two of them weren't actually all that bad at sneaking around Hogwarts. They've been doing it for months and have yet to be caught, after all.

The problem was Harry Potter.

Potter had all the stealth and grace of a freight train. He also had the resilience of a bloodhound when it came to tracking his 'target'. Unforunately, his target happened to be Kaneki's best friend.

Kaneki can't be bothered to remember when it actually started, but Potter had been annoyingly insistent on following Hide around. At first, Kaneki had thought it was just the weird Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry at play, but on further thought it made no sense. Potter had no reason to focus any of it on Hide, after all. The other Slytherins were far more hostile and would be far more willing to have Potter's attentions on them instead.

It wouldn't be so much of an issue if Potter was actually any good at sneaking, but he wasn't.

If Kaneki was to be completely honest, Potter's weird fixation on Hide was getting irritating.

"Hey, hey!" His thoughts were interrupted by the blonde beside him. "You're getting grumpy thoughts again." Hide pokes his cheek and grins when he turns an annoyed glance towards him. Kaneki couldn't find the strength to deny his best friend's accusation, Hide was right anyways.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of him." Hide gestures over his shoulder, gives Kaneki a wink and quickly turns around. The two friends pretend not to hear the shocked gasp or the sudden stumble of steps that followed. Kaneki rolls his eyes before turning around as well. All that was behind them was a stretch of hallway, slightly illuminated by the faint glow of moonlight from outside. Kaneki follows Hide's gaze, focused on one of the alcoves. Kaneki allowed Hide a minute or two of tormenting the Gryffindor before deciding it was time to move on.

"It's probably nothing." Kaneki announces, making sure his voice was loud enough to reach the boy hidden in the alcove. He grabs hold of Hide's hand and drags him away. They ignore the sigh of relief that followed, and continue walking further down the halls. Kaneki lightly punches Hide in the shoulder when he sees the blonde shaking from laugther, mouth tightly covered by his free hand.

"You thought it was funny too."

"Yes, but I wasn't being obvious about it." Kaneki teases. Hide gasps in mock offense before pouting at him. Kaneki nudges his shoulder and swings their hands back and forth, smiliing when Hide smiles back at him. Hide squeezes his hand and Kaneki squeezes back.

They spend another hour just wandering around the castle, simply enjoying each other's company. During some point later on, Potter resumes following them but Kaneki finds it easier to ignore the intrusion.

On nights like these, it was easy to forget everything else. All that matters is Hide's hand in his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "but what if harry potter stalked hide"   
> "what"


	2. backstory: side a

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> watch the word magic be used enough times that you forget it's an actual word

Ken Kaneki believed in magic.

He knows it exists, of course. His mother made no point of keeping it secret from him. There's no denying that magic is there. Not when he sees his mother wave around a small stick, whisper a few words and fix a broken dish in mere seconds. Not when the fireplace would flare to life every other Tuesday and a stranger's voice would mingle with his mother's, exchanging pleasantries and mundanities.

Not when some days her eyes are glazed over with something cold when she looks at him, and other days her smile is enough to make their house feel like a home.

Kaneki can't very well deny the existence of magic when it's been a constant of his life.

Kaneki couldn't very well say he didn't believe in it. He didn't see any reason to.

* * *

He lives with his mother in a small town, somewhere quite off the map as far as Kaneki knows. They live further away from the other residents, their street only occupied by two other houses and neither had any occupants. They live in a rather spacious cottage, structure similar with the other two. The only thing that differentiated their house was the well-kept garden in the front.

The cottage had far too many rooms to accomodate their family of two. The extra rooms were left to serve a variety of purposes, from housing well-worn books to simply collecting dust.

Kaneki didn't live under any delusion that their presence there was exactly normal. Neither were remotely European, their names and features far too different in comparison to the other residents of their small town. They were Japanese, no question about it.

Once, he'd asked his mother why they hadn't been living in Japan instead. She merely averted her eyes and told him they had no family there, and that was that.

* * *

"Did you know that your father was magic too?" His mother had asked him one afternoon as he was helping her wash the dishes. With only the two of them living together, they had taken to letting the dishes pile up until there weren't any more clean dishes to use. Doing the dishes was one of the few things they did that felt like something a normal family would do.

Kaneki shakes his head as he carefully takes an offered plate and goes to rinse it. His mother starting conversation with him was rare, and he'd expected the rest of the chore to go by in silence. Even rarer was his mother sharing anything about her past, and that included his father.

The only thing he knew of his father were his absence and the books he left behind. He knew that he was present when he was a baby, but had simply vanished somewhere along the line. He would be lying if he said he wasn't curious about the man, but other than that he felt nothing for him. He'd built an approximation of the man, using the words he'd borrowed from the yellowing pages of the books he'd previously owned. But that's all he knew, borrowed words. He couldn't really come to care for someone he'd never had the time to know on his own.

As much as he loved books, he knew that they could never compare to the real thing.

"Well he was," his mother's voice breaks his train of thought. He watches her from the corner of his eye, frowns hesitantly as he recognizes the distant look she gives the sky outside. "It's how I met him, you know." Kaneki nods and watches as the memories play out in front of her, stories that only she knew and obviously had no intention of truly sharing with him.

He didn't mind. Not when her eyes were alight with something sincere. He returns his focus to the rest of the dishes in the sink, and pretends not to notice the tears that had started slipping from his mother. He wasn't prepared for his mother to suddenly embrace him, hands gently petting his head and sobs escaping from her lips.

This was the moment that Kaneki accepted that his father was magic.

His mother had never been one to wear her heart on her sleeve, and this was the first time he's seen her at her most honest. Anyone that could cause his mother to bare the smallest sliver of her soul like this was without a doubt magical.

"You'll meet someone magic too." She whispers and places a kiss on his forehead. 'I'm sorry I couldn't be that for you' goes unsaid, and Kaneki nervously returns her embrace. He's terrified of the thought that someone could do this to another person, shake them to their very core without even needing to be present. Yet, he couldn't deny that he hoped his mother wasn't wrong.

It was during that afternoon that Kaneki finally shared something significant and heartfelt with his mother. The two of them stayed there, forgetting the rest of the dishes left in the sink. Even if it was only a sense of loss that they shared during that moment, Kaneki would never give up the memory of it.

The sky was growing orange, and that day was the last time Kaneki's mother had talked to him about his father.

* * *

Kaneki had slept in the following afternoon.

He was woken up by distressed knocking on the front door. He stays in bed, not fully awake yet and stares at the ceiling. The knocking continues and Kaneki absentmindedly thinks that his mother may have been doing errands in town. Seeing no choice, he sighs and stumbles out of bed. He grumbles to himself as he made his way out to greet whoever was there. They barely received visitors, having consistently kept to themselves, but that didn't mean Kaneki was going to be impolite. Even if he really wanted to.

When he finally opens the door, he's greeted by the sombre faces of two men in police uniforms.

* * *

His mother rarely read to him. During the few times she does, she often picks a well-worn book full of short stories. Every word wove an image of a world full of magic, and his mother always sounded as if she'd lived it beforehand.

That afternoon in the kitchen, she made him believe magic was a blessing.

But she was dead.

And Kaneki? Kaneki was alive and completely alone.

He walks aimlessly around their house, though it was more of his house now, and ends up in his mother's room. He approaches her bedside table, and finds the same book she'd read to him. The pages had yellowing edges, and the illustration on the cover was fading. Flipping through the pages, he stops on a random story. He barely registers most of the words until he reaches the ending. The words 'Happily Ever After' openly mock him and Kaneki snaps the book shut.

The stories in that book, the memories he had of his mother and her curious stick, of the afternoon in the kitchen when his mother finally shared a piece of her soul with him - they'd made him believe magic could fix anything.

They lied.

* * *

Ken Kaneki doesn't believe in magic.

He couldn't, not anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all my friends have left school while im still here and still havent eaten lunch


	3. backstory: transition

Kaneki apparently has a cousin, and by extension this means he also has an aunt and an uncle. A maternal aunt, it turns out. She reminds him nothing of his mother, and Kaneki feels terribly unsettled by that fact. It would've been far more comforting to face a somewhat familiar evil rather than try and get used to a new one.

But he has no other choice, since there's nobody else that could take him in.

She makes a point of consistently reminding Kaneki that they had a perfectly good home back in Japan, but out of the kindness of their hearts they decided to stay with Kaneki in England for the time being. Of course, it had nothing to do with the sizeable money that his mother had somehow managed to save up and leave for Kaneki, along with their similarly sizeable house. The fact that the only way his aunt could get her hands on any of these was to take be Kaneki's legal guardian was notwithstanding. The money and cottage was merely a bonus, a lucky consequence. His aunt was just generous to her very core.

Everyone else in the town would agree. After all, who hadn't heard of the tragic little boy that was left an orphan? Word travelled fast enough in their isolated little town. As quickly as the news of his mother's death had spread, so did the news of his aunt and her family's arrival. Now, everyone knows that the Asaokas had taken him in because he was family, and there was no way they could've possibly left him alone. The Asaokas were saints, in the eyes of their new town, Mrs. Asaoka especially. Why, she was simply distraught over the loss of her sister, but she did her best to stay strong for her nephew.

It didn't matter that she hadn't known what Kaneki even looked like until a few days before her sister's funeral.

* * *

Kaneki's aunt was more forthcoming than his mother ever was. It was a small blessing, Kaneki can't help but think to himself when his aunt lays the ground rules once the rest of her family has finally settled into the house.

"Let's get a few things straightened out." His aunt declares as she stands outside his bedroom door. She looks inside his bedroom and scoffs when her eyes land on a small pile of books on Kaneki's desk. There's a mumbled ' _of course the brat is a bookworm_ ' which Kaneki ignores as she walks inside.

"Outside of this house, we play _happy family_ ," and she sneers at the last two words. "But inside, you only talk when you're spoken to, understand?" She turns to him expectantly, and is pacified when she receives a small nod.

"Of course, it would be for the best if you simply stay out of our way here and we'll do the same." Another nod which receives a tight-lipped smile in return. "This arrangement is only temporary of course, and we won't have to worry about it when you're eleven and packing your bags." Kaneki visibly jumps at this and turns a disbelieving stare towards his aunt.

"What are you talking about? You're not going to kick me out when I'm eleven, are you?!" She looks surprised at his outburst before understanding finally dawns upon her. His aunt laughs, it's such a mocking sound, and Kaneki is about to finally yell at her when she holds a hand up.

"She didn't tell you about her freak school, didn't she." It's more of a statement and Kaneki can't possibly refute it. It was rare enough that his mother talked to him, but most details of her past were so scarce and vague that they were easy to forget.

"It's a boarding school for your kind," his aunt makes a face. "Magic, freaks - no difference really. You'll get your letter when you hit eleven and you'll be out of our hair when the school year starts then." There's a satisfied smile on her face and it's the most pleasant expression that she's ever somewhat directed at him. Kaneki is almost tempted to smile as well, but manages to clamp it down.

"Asides from that, I suggest you start picking out which of those old books you plan on keeping." His aunt states as she heads for the door. "Whatever isn't in your room by next week is either going to be sold or thrown out." Kaneki stiffens and she lets out a harsh laugh. She slams the door on her way out.

* * *

When it comes to Yuuchi and Mr. Asaoka, Kaneki doesn't know how to feel. His aunt had managed to convince them both that Kaneki was simply a recluse and would rather keep to himself. While she wasn't exactly wrong, Kaneki did sometimes wish that Yuuichi would invite him to play outside or Mr. Asaoka would offer to help with his homework. Though the two of them were nice enough to Kaneki during the few chances he's had to interact with them, they still existed at a distance. Despite sharing the same house, it felt like the Asaokas actually lived miles away. Kaneki knew it wasn't only his aunt's insistence, but his own reluctance as well, that kept him from even trying to close the gap.

Some days, he'd look out his bedroom window and see Mr. Asaoka working on the garden out back. Around half an hour later Yuuichi would approach his father. Sometimes he had a ball they could play catch with, other times his hands were empty, and he would ask his dad to play with him. Mr. Asaoka would laugh before gesturing at the garden, telling Yuuichi he still had work to do. Yuuichi would pout and Mr. Asaoka would ruffle his hair before relenting to his son.

The two would play outside for a while, run around and laugh. His aunt would come outside, carrying a tray of snacks and refreshments. She'd call out to them, and once Kaneki had managed to catch a glimpse of a fond smile on her face. Father and son would stop, and Yuuichi would run to his mom while Mr. Asaoka catches up behind him. While Yuuichi would start filling himself up with snacks, Mr. Asaoka would wrap his arms around his wife and smile at her.

Whenever he watches them like this, Kaneki can't help but think of his own parents. At first, there used to be some sort of sorrow but now all he can feel is jealousy and spite. Why couldn't his parents have both stayed? Why did they have to leave him alone like this?

Even though there were more people living with him now, Kaneki has never felt lonelier.

* * *

A year later, a new family moves into one of the empty houses. The Nagachikas move into the house from across theirs.


End file.
